Milan

Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World
COPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc.

MILAN

MILAN. Milan and the rich agricultural district around it have constituted an important economic pole of Europe since the late Roman Empire. The rich agricultural plain in which Milan sits is irrigated by summer rains, and glacial runoff from the Alps feeds rivers that are complemented by a network of navigable canals. Wealthy Milan instigated resistance against the Holy Roman emperors in the Middle Ages. Early in the fourteenth century, Milan's institutions were seized by the noble house of Visconti. Giangaleazzo Visconti (c. 1351–1402) added most of northern Italy to his dominions by 1400. With his death, the duchy shrank to include modern-day Lombardy, the Italian-speaking valleys in the Alps to the north, and the districts of Parma and Piacenza. The duchy passed to a Visconti sonin-law, Francesco Sforza, in 1447. Like those of his forebears, the duke's citadels kept subject cities in check, but his grip weakened nevertheless. A French royal marriage contracted to give legitimacy to the Visconti dynasty had the unintended consequence of providing King Louis XII (ruled 1498–1515) with a claim to the territory. Annexing the region to his kingdom in 1515, King Francis I (ruled 1515–1547) erected French-style institutions, such as the senate of sixty members invested with legislative and judicial powers, that operated with little royal interference. The imperial conquest of Milan in 1523 marked the onset of a new phase. Emperor Charles V (ruled 1519–1556) awarded Milan to his son Philip (and thereby to Spain) in 1540 but retained the ultimate authority over it as the Holy Roman emperor. Great projects of fortification around each of the cities and the permanent provision of Spanish garrisons removed the threat of new French invasions.

Politically, the territory was composed of nine city-states—Milan, Pavia, Lodi, Cremona, Como, Novara, Tortona, Alessandria, and Vigevano—each with its own autonomy and tax base. Considerable power was vested in both a landed aristocracy and a judicial and professional nobility living and practicing in the large cities. They were joined by new families residing in Milan, purchasing fiefs from the Spanish crown. Important political decisions were taken by the king in Spain, through his Council of Italy, and were dispatched to his representative, the governor of Milan. This Spanish governor ruled with a cluster of important officials in a secret council, dealing with justice, taxation, and provisioning; the commander of the citadel, the commanders of cavalry and artillery, and a handful of royal appointees were also members. Milanese and Lombards
comprised almost half of this personnel. From Milan, the Spanish governor could forestall any menacing activity by France or by Italian princes in northern Italy. The governors of Milan were often asked to arbitrate border disputes between states, to better reinforce Spanish influence. The governor enjoyed great leeway to prepare for war or cultivate alliances in the peninsula. Milan was the terminus of several strategic routes protecting the Spanish empire; one avenue led from Spain via water to Finale Liguria and Genoa; another coastal route connected Naples and Sicily with northern Italy. Finally, Milan was the staging area for troops destined for the Spanish Netherlands, who marched north through Savoy or Swiss Alpine valleys to Alsace and the Rhine Valley.

Wealth and population bolstered the strategic interest of the duchy. Milan's population reached 120,000 inhabitants in 1600, with about a million people in the duchy overall. Milan produced silks, fine woolens, weapons and armor, and myriad other products besides. Cremona was a producer of cotton fabrics, while Como, Pavia, and Lodi had textile industries of their own, exporting their products beyond Italy. The rural plain of Lombardy was one of the most advanced agricultural districts anywhere in Europe. Milan was also an important center of religious direction. No single individual had as great an impact on the Catholic Reformation as Carlo Borromeo (1538–1584), the nephew of Pope Pius IV and cardinal and archbishop of Milan. King Philip II (ruled 1556–1598) nominated loyal notables to religious benefices, but he did not have access to the church money in Milan that he had in Spain. Madrid initially tried to stop the flow of ecclesiastical revenues toward Rome but was challenged by Borromeo. The Milanese rejected the importation of the Spanish Inquisition in 1563, but they embraced the papal version of the same tribunal. Several governors clashed with the church's representatives, but the Milanese clergy would not give way, and the Spanish government instructed its officials to respect papal exemptions. The multiplication of religious schools made the city one of the most literate in Europe, and it vied with Venice, Florence, and Rome for cultural primacy.

SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY CRISIS

As everywhere in Italy, the onset of the Thirty Years' War in 1618 abruptly ended the economic and political stability of Milan, which was strategic in shifting Spanish resources of men and money to the Austrian Habsburgs. Milan was threatened, however, by the Mantuan fortresses of Casale Monferrato and Mantua. When a French branch of the Gonzaga dynasty, which had ruled Mantua and its environs for centuries until 1627, inherited the duchy of Mantua, Spain mobilized to eject them from it in 1628–1630, with mixed success. War inflicted lasting damage on the manufacturing economy. Lucrative markets in Germany and France became inaccessible. Many urban workshops moved their low-skilled operations to the countryside. The more resistant silk industry found it difficult to compete with new international competitors, such as Lyon in France. Much of the raw silk produced by Lombard peasants and transformed into thread in local mills was sent to France to be worked there. The Lombard economy was already in trouble when the bubonic plague of 1630 struck the region. It killed half the population of the city and roughly a quarter of the population of northern Italy. The sudden decline in population took the buoyancy out of the rural economy. The Lombard agricultural economy recovered earlier than most others, thanks to rich resources for livestock and the fertility of the soil. Nevertheless, prices and living standards declined throughout the seventeenth century and beyond. Over several generations, the number of noble families in Milan and other towns was sharply reduced.

New French invasions after 1635 had remarkably little impact on Spanish domination, partly because Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin treated Italy as a sideshow. Lombard city and peasant militias performed valuable services, as in the siege of Pavia in 1655. Spain enjoyed the ongoing support of Milanese elites and held on until the peace of 1659 with only a few thousand troops sent from home. Under Louis XIV (ruled 1643–1715), Italy receded from French policy objectives. Piedmont shielded Milan from a French attack in the War of Devolution (1667–1668) and the Dutch War (1672–1678). In the War of the League of Augsburg (1688–1697), which united Europe against the French king, Piedmont constituted the battlefield
in Italy, while Spanish Milan contributed troops to the common effort.

AUSTRIAN LOMBARDY

Between 1649 and 1659, imperial (Austrian Habsburg) troops sent to help Spain resist France began to take control of imperial fiefs in Lombardy. In 1690 an imperial army sent to fight France imposed Austrian claims on northern Italy. During the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1713), the Austrian cause triumphed at the battle of Turin in 1706, and Austria replaced Spain as the ruling power in Lombardy. In 1707, in 1734, and again in 1748 substantial slices of the rich plain and the Alps were shifted to Piedmontese control as the duchy shrank to a wedge of central Lombardy. Initially, Vienna ruled the duchy through the same institutions as before, a viceregal governor and a special council for Italian territories. However, renewed Spanish efforts to recover the duchy almost succeeded twice, in the Wars of the Polish Succession (1733–1738) and of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748). To Empress Maria Theresa (1717–1780) it underscored the need to make Lombardy contribute more to the central government.

The Austrian solution was to create new administrative bodies that paid no attention to the concerns of local aristocrats. Vienna compiled an innovative land register on which to assess taxes, giving state officials instead of private businessmen the task of raising the money. Landowners' assemblies in the countryside reduced the jurisdiction of city nobles. By the 1780s Emperor Joseph II (ruled 1765–1790) abolished many of the former magistracies and guilds, replacing them with departments of Austrian ministries. Religious institutions managed by Lombard aristocrats were also closed down as the state asserted its control over charity and education. These measures were in large part prompted or applauded by Italian intellectuals gathered around Pietro Verri (1728–1797) and Cesare Beccaria (1738–1794) with their journal Il Caffè. With Venice, the city was the most active center of the Italian Enlightenment.

Milan never recovered the manufacturing rank in Europe that it had held before the Thirty Years' War and the outbreak of bubonic plague. Austrian manufacturing subsidies helped plant some new textile industries on the English model in the city, but the vast rural industry springing up in the hinterland, across the modern provinces of Milan, Varese, and Como was more important to the future. The region's agriculture kept pace with the rising population—a massive conversion to maize and rice cultivation provided new staples—but autonomous peasants and sharecroppers were reduced to the status of landless day laborers. In 1796 Milan and its state still figured as a rich prize to French armies under Napoleon and was the logical place to create the capital of a new kingdom of Italy.

See alsoBorromeo, Carlo ; Habsburg Dynasty ; Italy .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Boer, Witse de. The Conquest of the Soul: Confession, Discipline and Public Order in Counter-Reformation Milan. Leiden and Boston, 2000.

Capra, Carlo. "The Eighteenth Century. 1: The Finances of the Austrian Monarchy and the Italian states." In Economic Systems and State Finance, edited by Richard Bonney, pp. 417–442. Oxford and New York, 1995.

Moioli, A. "De-Industrialization in Lombardy during the Seventeenth Century." In The Rise and Decline of Urban Industries in Italy and the Low Countries: Late Middle Ages–Early Modern Times, edited by Herman van der Wee, pp. 75–120. Louvain, 1988.

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Milan (city, Italy)

The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.

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Milan (mĬlăn´, –än´), Ital. Milano, Lat. Mediolanum, city (1991 pop. 1,369,231), capital of Lombardy and of Milan prov., N Italy, at the heart of the Po basin. Because of its strategic position in the Lombard plain, at the intersection of several major transportation routes, it has been since the Middle Ages an international commercial, financial, and industrial center. Today Milan is Italy's second largest city after Rome and its economic heart. It has the highest per capita income in Italy. Manufactures include textiles, clothing, machinery, chemicals, electric appliances, printed materials, motor vehicles, airplanes, and rubber goods. The city has a large construction industry, and it is one of the most important silk markets in Europe.

Points of Interest

The most striking feature of the city is the Duomo, the large, white-marble cathedral (1386–1813), which shows traces of many styles (especially Gothic). It is elaborately ornamented, with 135 pinnacles and more than 200 marble statues. A statue of the Madonna is on the highest pinnacle (354 ft/108 m). Other points of interest in Milan include Brera Palace and Picture Gallery (17th cent.), which includes major works by Mantegna, Bellini, Piero della Francesca, and Raphael; the Castello Sforzesco (15th cent., with 19th-century additions), which houses a museum of art; the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie (1465–90), containing the famous fresco, the Last Supper, by Leonardo da Vinci; the Basilica of Sant' Ambrogio (founded in the 4th cent., rebuilt in the 11th–12th cent.); the Ambrosian Library, which houses a rich collection of paintings; the Church of Sant' Eustorgio (9th cent.); the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of Science and Technology; the gallery of modern art; and the Poldi Pezzoli Museum, with paintings by Boticelli, Pollaiuolo, Mantegna, and Piero della Francesca. Long a center of music, Milan has a conservatory and a famous opera house, Teatro alla Scala (opened in 1778). Between the Duomo and La Scala is the 130-year-old Galleria, an enclosed four-story glass-roofed arcade that contains shops and eateries and is a popular gathering place. The city also has three universities and a polytechnic institute.

History

Probably of Celtic origin, Milan was conquered by Rome in 222 BC In later Roman times it was the capital (AD 305–402) of the Western Empire and the religious center of N Italy. In 313 Constantine I issued the Edict of Milan, which granted religious toleration. From 374 to 379 the city's bishop was St. Ambrose, known for the liturgy he wrote and for his eloquence. Milan was severely damaged by the Huns (c.450) and again by the Goths (539) and was conquered by the Lombards in 569.

In the 12th cent. it became a free commune and gradually gained supremacy over the cities of Lombardy. From the 11th to the 13th cent. Milan suffered from internal warfare between rich and poor, from the Guelph and Ghibelline strife, and from the enmity of rival cities, which assisted Emperor Frederick I in destroying it (1163). As a member of the Lombard League, Milan later contributed to the defeat of Frederick I at Legnano (1176). The city's independence was recognized in the Peace of Constance (1183). In the 13th cent. Milan lost its republican liberties; first the Torriani, then the Visconti (1277) became its lords. Galeazzo Visconti received (1395) the title of duke of Milan from the emperor, and under him the duchy became one of the most important states in Italy. After the death of the last Visconti (1447) the Sforza became dukes of Milan. The city flourished until it became involved in the Italian Wars and passed under Spanish domination (1535).

At the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, Austrian rule of Milan was established (1713–96). Napoleon I made the city the capital of the Cisalpine Republic (1797) and of the kingdom of Italy (1805–14). In 1815 Milan again came under Austria. It was a leading center throughout the Risorgimento; after five days of heroic fighting in 1848 the citizens of Milan succeeded in expelling the Austrians, who returned, however, a few months later. In 1859 the city was united with the kingdom of Sardinia. Its industrial importance grew after it was incorporated (1861) into Italy. In World War II Milan suffered widespread damage from Allied air raids; many significant buildings were damaged beyond repair. Milan is the site of the 2015 World Exposition.

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Milan (prince and king of Serbia)

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Milan (Milan Obrenović) (mĬl´än ōbrĕ´nəvĬch), 1854–1901, prince (1868–82) and king (1882–89) of Serbia; grandnephew of Miloš Obrenović. He succeeded his cousin Michael Obrenović as prince. He was educated in Paris, and a regency, which undertook constitutional reform in 1869, ruled for him until 1872. Under Russian influence he declared war (1876) on the Ottoman Empire in support of the rebellion in Bosnia and Herzegovina (see Russo-Turkish Wars). At the Congress of Berlin (1878) he secured Austrian support and obtained European recognition of the full independence of Serbia from the Ottoman Empire. In 1882 he took the title king of Serbia after signing a secret treaty granting Austria considerable influence. Heavy taxation, his pro-Austrian policy, his scandalous private life, and his unsuccessful campaign (1885) against Bulgaria aroused bitter opposition. After proclaiming (1889) a liberal constitution, he abdicated in favor of his son, Alexander (Alexander Obrenović), and went abroad. He returned in 1897 and became commander in chief of the army but resigned upon his son's marriage to Draga Mašin.

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Milan

Milan (Milano) City in nw Italy; capital of Lombardy region. It was conquered by Rome in 222 bc. It was a free commune by the 12th century, and was a powerful Italian state under the Sforza family from 1447 to 1535, when the Spanish seized control. Ruled by Napoleon from 1796 to 1814, he claimed the city as capital of his Italian kingdom. It then fell to the Austrian Habsburgs before becoming part of Italy in 1860. Milan is Italy's leading commercial, financial, and industrial centre. Sights include Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper (1495–98) in the Convent of Santa Maria della Grazie, a white-marble cathedral (1386–1813), and La Scala opera house. Industries: motor vehicles, machinery, electrical goods, textiles, clothing, publishing. Pop. (2001) 1,301,551.

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